And with that, Kaden Honeycutt took a commanding lead in the NASCAR Truck Series Chase for the Championship.
That wasn’t so much Honeycutt winning on Saturday at Kansas Speedway but Layne Riggs refusing to accept a second place, instead crashing his Front Row Motorsports No. 34, and throwing away 17 points in the process.
It was the difference between a 20-point championship deficit with five races to go and a more insurmountable sounding 37.
Watch: Riggs: ‘Reins weren’t tight enough, I snapped them by accident’
“I should have been thinking points,” Riggs said after the race. “I was thinking trophy. I finished, well, I’ve crossed the line second here the past two years and I felt like I was finally in a position that I had a shot to win a race here in Kansas and I just made a really big mistake. And so, I think that I should have been thinking about the next five races instead of just putting it all in one. But we’re not out of this. Five races is a lot.”
At the same time, Riggs didn’t need to be told it and was beating himself up internally for it before climbing out of the truck. Veteran crew chief and competition director for Front Row, Drew Blickensderfer, leaned in with words of support.
There’s only one thing left to do and it’s the thing that no one has done more this season than Riggs — win some dang races.
“I feel like, as you’ve seen the shakeup in the upper two series, the points move around fast and flip the script,” Riggs said. “We’re not out of this thing at all. It’s going to be tough on me but I’m going to keep grinding and keep fighting.”
But this is now a question that Honeycutt and crew chief and Scott Zipadelli will face now. Honeycutt says he’s going to keep his foot on the figurative throttle but Zipadelli, a two-time champion, says it’s now time to points race.
“No, I think we stay on them, just keep our foot down and never let it off the ground,” Honeycutt said. “And I feel like as far as our mentality, our Chase mentality and Scott’s mentality, I think it’s working right now.
“Last week was definitely a bummer. I though we could have won the race, but having a loose wheel at the end and then everyone coming together the last 30 laps to go and go from 18th to 8th and salvage a night out of it. It shows how resilient this team is and how we never give up in any situation.”
Watch: Honeycutt praises team execution after winning Kansas
Zipadelli is of a completely different mindset.
“I think unfortunately you have to points race,” Zipadelli said. “We’ll have to stage race because this thing could still come down to two points at the end of the year so we got to grab as many points as soon as we can.
“If we can get 10 points on stage one, we’re going to take them instead of shortening the stage and giving up points. So, my philosophy is put as many points in the bank as we can as soon as we can because you’re not guaranteed to win the race. In the past we were able to give up stage points to go for a win, but you can’t do that anymore.”
Now, the irony of this whole situation, is that Riggs and everyone below him will have to win above all else to chase down Honeycutt.
Kaden Honeycutt
Layne Riggs -37
Chandler Smith -71
Gio Ruggiero -72
Christian Eckes -82
Daniel Hemric -87
Ty Majeski -88
Ben Rhodes -98
Grant Enfinger -118
Tyler Ankrum -127
Enfinger was already going for wins at all cost on Saturday, staying out when it started raining, but NASCAR then resumed the race.
“We came in here with the mindset that we needed to gamble. We weren’t throwing Hail Marys,” Enfinger said. “I felt like we made gambles that could maybe go in our favor.”
They didn’t but he’s going to have to keep going that direction.
“I think at the end of the day, we just need to go out and do the best of our ability, take what we have, maximize what we got,” Smith said. “If we have a race winning truck that day, we need to make sure that we capitalize. If we have a third-place truck; let’s make sure we execute, dot our I’s, cross our T’s, not put ourself in a bigger hole than we already are because at the same time these other guys still got to go out and execute as well. So just need to go out, do the best of our ability and see how it all pans out.”
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